Thai ex-PM Yingluck Shinawatra found guilty over rice subsidy policy

Yingluck Shinawatra's government attempted an extreme version of an existing rice subsidy.

Reuters: Chaiwat Subprasom (file photo)

A Thai court has delivered a guilty verdict to Thailand's former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra, holding her personally and criminally responsible for a failed rice subsidy policy.

Key points:

Yingluck sentenced over management of 2011-2013 rice subsidy scheme

Scheme was popular with farmers but left Government with warehouses of overpriced crop

Yingluck fled country last month, speculation she joined her brother in Dubai

After a trial lasting more than two years, a Bangkok court has found her guilty of dereliction of duty, and handed down a five-year jail term.

However, Yingluck fled the country last month, dramatically failing to appear at court for a previous ruling.

Her whereabouts are unknown, although it is widely speculated she fled via Cambodia and Singapore to Dubai to join her brother Thaksin Shinawatra.

He fled the country in 2008 to avoid corruption charges.

Three police officers allegedly helped Yingluck flee, and the military relaxed its close monitoring of the controversial figure days before the August 25 verdict was due.

"I know, but I won't say yet," said Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-o-cha, who led the military coup that ousted Ms Yingluck.

"I'll tell you where she is after September 27 … I have spies," said General Prayuth.

What was the 'rice pledging' scheme?

The rice subsidy run by the Yingluck administration was an extreme version of a policy that has been used by generations of Thai governments to control prices around harvest time and boost support amongst farmers.

During the main harvest, rice floods the market and prices drop.

So governments offer rice pledging deals, in which farmers mortgage their rice to the state in exchange for loans, later buying back the crop when the price increases.

Yingluck's administration took the idea much further.

Between 2011 and 2013, her administration bought millions of tonnes of rice at double the market value, a gamble that was popular amongst farmers, her core constituency.

When the global rice market tanked, the government was left with warehouses full of overpriced crop.

Unscrupulous millers and others sold, swapped, and stole the stockpiled rice, while some of it simply rotted.